The Afterlives of Sarah Rees Toome
by ThreeOranges
Summary: Eight scenes in the life of Circe. 'For she who lives more lives than one, More deaths than one must die.' Contains spoilers for AGATB and RA.


**Foreword:** All characters and major events are the property of Libba Bray. This fanfic contains spoilers for both A Great And Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels. It is dedicated to BabyDraco, the best kind of friend, who offered lots of encouragement and intelligent criticism, and without whom it would never have been completed.

**The Afterlives of Sarah Rees-Toome**

**By ThreeOranges**

"For he who lives more lives than one

More deaths than one must die."

- _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_, Oscar Wilde

**I.**

She screamed. Above her – far above her – lightning forked and split the black bowl of the sky. Light bled from the cracks, pure and cold, and the rain hissed against the thin pane of glass. She was breaking apart, she too was forked, gripping the mattress and struggling to breathe as the force inside her threatened to split her apart.

Pain erupted again, and she twisted on the mattress, her pale hair stuck in damp strands to her burning cheeks. Her voice, when it came, was a thin torn rag.

"_Help me_."

How she loathed to beg. She, who had cupped so much power in her two slim hands, now reduced to pleading with a cold-eyed stranger for relief! But yet she begged, and yet again the midwife sitting on the corner of her bed withdrew her lips from her cigarette and told her to pray for the strength to endure. Didn't the Bible say it was the punishment for the race of women, that they must suffer such agonies? Be glad that you can feel some measure of the Lord's pain upon the Cross, so that you may take His lessons more perfectly to heart!

(What the midwife didn't say aloud, but felt free to think, was that the workhouse sanatorium had precious little ether for anaesthesia as it was, and they weren't about to waste it on some silly little tart who should have had more sense than to get herself in the family way. Let her suffer. Perhaps next time she'd know better, and clean herself out before another 'little accident' occurred.)

The girl on the bed closed her eyes and did her best to still her hoarse breathing in the few minutes she had between the stabbing contractions. Here, for the moment, awash in the dust-grey sheets, she had enough of her wits about her to concentrate, to will the next wave of pain from coming at her with such force. And yet, for all her mental preparations, each wave seemed somehow more intense than the one before, as if some gloating invisible torturer had set himself the task of wrenching further screams from her spent body.

So had she screamed that night in the woods, hiding in the darkness, watching all the trees' black bark crazed with yellow-orange light. In the distance she saw the teachers shepherding out the students in their nightdresses, but she knew who was not amongst them. The girl whom she last saw as a silhouette in front of a wall of flames: the girl who had ruined everything, who would never have let her have the Power. The best friend whom she had destroyed.

So had she screamed five months later, when the man with the scarf about his face had attacked her in a street off Seven Dials. Her scream had caused him to press harder, his glove against her mouth, forcing her to taste the stink of oil and ingrained dirt. With the other he'd pulled up her skirt, whispered instructions to her. When she'd refused and struggled, he'd grabbed a handful of her hair in his fist and knocked her skull sharply against the brick wall.

When she recovered consciousness, she knew exactly what he'd done.

Later she stole a knife, and grew used to pulling it from her side at the least sign of trouble, but in her old life no-one had ever warned her that vomit in the mornings and a liverish appetite were more than a reaction to bad food. When her belly grew too round she finally understood, and took herself off to the Grove Road Workhouse that very afternoon.

"Esther Scann?" The matron had queried, her eyes narrowed. "You Irish?"

She had shaken her head. _No, an enchantress_, she longed to say. But she did not, and hid her smile behind her hand. Here, at least, she would get three meagre meals a day for the next five months, and her belly would save her from oakum-picking and other unhealthy tasks. She could manage a needle, and it was a relief not to have to disguise her well-bred voice. Here, she could say nothing: she could pass as a dull little shadow, beneath the notice of the work-coarsened inmates.

But now she was no longer in control. Now she was suffering and ready to surrender all she was, all she could be, for a relief from the pain. She opened her mouth, took one final breath and called out a single word.

To her ears, that last cry seemed to reverberate down some long dark tunnel. Then came the rushing of winds, and an awful silence.

When she opened her eyes, there was no more pain. Everything in the room was still. The midwife's eyes were glassy, unblinking. Smoke hung suspended in an elaborate Elizabethan zig-zag from her glowing cigarette-tip. And there, beyond the midwife's unseeing head, something moved in the shadows: a roiling cloud of thick-textured smoke, with a wide jagged mouth. A mouth which was smiling.

_You called me, Circe,_ a voice resounded in her mind. _At long last, you have called me._

She longed to deny it, but could not. _Yes_, she replied. _I have. I command you to take away this pain._

_And who will you sacrifice, to suffer pain in your place? You betrayed me, Circe. You promised me a sacrifice at the appointed time –_

_You will have your sacrifice. One sacrifice, as I promised you. Then I shall never call for you again_.

_No, but I will call upon you, Treacherous One,_ breathed the entity. _I will take my victims when I please, and you will guide them to me lest I take you instead. _

She shook her head, and the cloud was upon her.

_You startle, little girl! So you thought it was a matter of one sacrifice for all time? You, who trapped me between the worlds, hungry for food which never came? Now you must give me that which you denied me – which she denied me, when she sealed the Realms and locked me out of my own home!_

_One sacrifice_, she pleaded.

_Then the sacrifice will be you_. The cloud forced itself into her, pinning down her arms and pouring blackness into her open eyes. With the last of her breath she choked out a denial and a promise.

_Good_, purred the demon. _You will find me the first sacrifice soon, and with that death you will taste greatness. Now sleep, my mistress, and never feel pain again_.

The midwife fanned away the smoke and looked down at the girl sprawled supine across the sheets, her delicate features years younger in sleep. Evidently Nature had decided to take pity on her, she decided with a cluck of satisfaction. Then she parted the girl's thin legs, checking to see how long it would be before the poor little bastard made its first appearance in the world.

**II.**

She was weak, grimy, exhausted, with her unwashed hair straggling on each side of her peaked face, but they could no more have refused her command than if she had been an empress.

"Bring it here. I want to see it."

A woman laid it gently in her arms and she frowned at it, trying to understand. This thing was not beautiful! It did not look at all like the sweet babies she had seen, six or eight months of age, surrounded by lace and sheltered in perambulators. This thing's pale disproportionate head, its fatly-wrinkled clenched hands, the liquid that webbed the hair on the scalp and still glistened faintly from its skin - everything about it made her think of some strange sea-worm, dragged from the sunless submarine depths into the air. It was almost monstrous, and she knew she could bid goodbye to it with no regrets.

And at that moment - almost as if it heard her - the sea-worm opened its eyes and gazed up at her. Then she understood the power it had over all who looked at it. It was a power born not of beauty, but of raw helplessness that demanded protection. Its very existence was a moral test.

It blinked, then squirmed within her grasp, summoning the midwife to her side. "Wants to feed, love," she murmured. "How's about letting it, for a while? Last chance you'll have..."

The midwife's hand scrabbled at the girl's shift, seeking to pull it down her shoulders, and the girl saw instantly how it would be. The thing would feed from her, and the grip of its greedy, predatory mouth at her breast would seal the bond forever. She would not let the workhouse have it: she would escape with it that night, she would walk the earth with it in her arms. And the creature from the Realms would be always at their backs, casting a shadow over them, demanding sacrifice -

"No," she replied, thrusting it towards the midwife. "Take it away."

There was a gasp from the attendant crowd: such heartlessness was shocking to the charitable souls of the workhouse, those upright and moral ladies who saw no contradiction between expecting maternal feeling from the vagrant mothers and whisking their babies away for adoption. If the mothers wept and swore and mourned their loss, it was as chastening and spiritual a lesson as society could wish for. But when a mother refused to mourn, and turned her face away as this one did, such a one was surely damned for her hardened heart.

The next night, the porter stopped by her bed during his midnight rounds, to let her know that a wealthy couple had asked to adopt her little girl. They would be coming back tomorrow, to sign the papers and take the babe away. Wasn't that grand? The girl said nothing, and stared at the window where the rain beat crystalline against the glass.

The next evening the girl lingered briefly outside the door of the superintendent's office. She listened in silence as the superintendent explained to the couple how the papers could _certainly_ be altered from papers of adoption to an official Certificate of Birth, but that such practices _tended_ to be frowned upon by the authorities, and therefore needed a little more in the way of a _donation_ to secure... The couple warmly murmured their assent, for they were born to money and knew what it could buy.

The girl filed away their surname in her mind, and almost smiled when they heard their choice of Christian name for the child. _The name of a queen_, she thought. _How appropriate_.

Later, at midnight, the porter sat in his office, munching on a bread-roll and reading _Tit-Bits_, a penny-paper filled with all the news and information any self-respecting reading man could require. A noise at his door caused him to lift his head. His little Esther was standing there, looking right at him with an unreadable stare.

"Girlie?" The porter deposited the paper on his desk-top and stood up. "What're you doing up? You should be back in bed - you'll be leaving soon -"

"Yes," she whispered, then raised her hand. The voice that came from her throat did not falter as it recited the low dark words of summoning. At first he did not hear the rustling behind him, or notice the growing shadow at the edge of his vision.

He turned, but had no time to scream.

_That was well done, Circe_, leered the voice in her mind. _Now look upon your handiwork. Does it please you? _

Suspended within the dark cavern of the creature's belly, the porter thrashed like a drowning man in the depths of the sea. As the girl watched, she could see the creature working upon the man, quelling his struggles with unseen pressure, draining him slowly of volition and reason until an empty hulk was all that remained of him.

An empty hulk that opened its whitened eyes and mouthed the word _Mistress_ at her.

_He is your servant now,_ giggled the demon, _and he will do whatever you desire. Is it not fine, to have this power? Answer me. Is it not fine?_

The next morning, the workhouse was shocked to find that its trusted porter of ten years, Mr Alfred Gardner, had absconded with the hundred pounds which had been donated to the workhouse the previous evening. A man-hunt was sparked with immediate effect, reaching even the front page of _Tit-Bits_, but without success. It was as if - like the legendary Spring-Heel'd Jack - Gardner and his loot had vanished into the air itself.

That same afternoon, Miss Esther Scann humbly collected the workhouse's usual donation to all its departing souls (a copy of the New Testament, printed on onion-skin paper), and passed through the workhouse's iron gates. She turned right from Grove Road into an unnamed alleyway, and was never seen again.

**III.**

Though she was a great deal younger than expected, and arrived with references from South Africa which never were verified, Miss Maria Hoftselme's artistic talent made her impossible for Miss Farrow's School at Sevenoaks to ignore. She was immediately taken on as a teacher and, after impressing Miss Farrow with her refinement and taste, she was appointed to the position of deputy headmistress within a year. When Miss Farrow's body was found dangling limply from the light-fitting in her office, Miss Hoftselme nobly took charge and ran the school until its dissolution six months later.

Those ladies of Dublin with a bent for the exotic were most impressed by the arrival of Miss Merope Mitchadown, a young English Spiritualist whose green silk scarves and darting looks attracted more than a few men to attend her seances. By all accounts, she was a medium of unparalleled power: eyewitnesses spoke of spirits which would appear in the midst of the hand-holding circle, voices which wept and pleaded, and how the very darkness itself seemed to move in the corners of the room. One Christmas Eve, twelve people sat down at Miss Mitchadown's table and joined hands. When the door was opened the next morning only one man remained, a white-faced, hollow-eyed man who shrieked at the first touch of daylight and who required four strong men to restrain him. He could offer no explanation of where his companions had gone, and his ravings of a "devouring demon" spoke of an irreparably broken mind. He was consigned to the asylum at Ballydown, never again to leave his barred cell. All searches for the vanished "seekers after Truth" came to nothing. Spiritualists everywhere mourned their tragic loss, not least that of charming Miss Mitchadown, whose gifts had given so much comfort to so many.

The Manchester cotton-mill millionaire Sir Thomas Kelston was a lifelong bachelor, so it came as a shock to all (not least his brother's family, who had longed for the old coot's death for the last fifteen years) when he married a young woman from nowhere. Miss Aurielle Whitboyd was delicate of form and feature, certainly, but everyone agreed that she possessed none of the breeding or graces required for a Lady Kelston. She was shy and bespectacled, often pleading headaches to excuse herself from society dances. When she refused the chance to have her portrait painted by John Singer Sargent, her impertinence caused such a furore in the higher circles that Lady Kelston pleaded with her husband for a holiday. Lovingly he agreed, and ordered his yacht, the _Armadale_, to be prepared for a voyage to the Greek islands. The _Armadale _was wrecked in a horrific storm off the Spanish coast a few days later. There were no survivors, and many of the bodies never washed to shore. After the funeral, Mr Richard Kelston was aggrieved to find that his late brother's fortune was by no means as vast as he had been led to believe.

Miss Claire McCleethy arrived at the Royal College of Bath in the spring of 1886, an ornate ruby brooch pinning her green cloak firmly in place. In her reticule were glowing references from Maria Hoftselme and the late Lady Kelston. On the morning of the first of May, 1887, a fifteen-year-old student, Gwendolen Fraser, was found lying at the foot of a pine tree in the school grounds, a Roman dagger through her heart. Shortly afterwards, another girl from her class confessed to the crime. Her name was Sybil Adams: she explained, as in a daze, that she had been possessed by the Roman goddess Cybele. She had killed Miss Fraser in the belief that she was her lover, the beautiful Attis, and that through sacrifice Attis would rise again and together they would enter the shining portal of Olympus. The details of Miss Adams' madness were so shocking that the school suppressed them, and Miss Adams, stricken by remorse, poisoned herself with lye before her case could come to trial.

In 1889 Miss McCleethy moved to the Mackenzie School for Girls, an establishment not far from Glasgow, "Empire's Second City" after London. She proved to be a popular teacher with the girls, and would often take them on walks through the wild Scottish countryside. It was on a weekend expedition to Loch Lomond that one girl, Cassandra Wentworth, showed the first signs of her troubled mind. Without warning she walked off on her own during a ramble, requiring Miss McCleethy to climb into the mountains to retrieve her, and on her return three hours later Miss Wentworth stated only that she had seen "a door - a wonderful door of light!" Her friends reported that Miss Wentworth grew proud and haughty around them, refusing to share in their activities and telling them that she knew of a far better place. One evening Miss Wentworth left her bedroom and walked to the far tower, whose western window offered a splendid view of the city. It will never be known what she did there - the candles were removed, and the chalk and charcoal markings which decorated the floor in a circle were quickly scrubbed out - but her shattered body was found at the tower's base. Though rumours of suicide flew quickly around the city, the local inquest judged her death to have been an accident, and she was buried in the Glasgow Necropolis with all due honours. School legend quickly fashioned her into a "White Lady" that walked after dark, a lighted candle in each hand.

The tragedy of Miss Wentworth's death proved too much for Miss McCleethy's sensibilities, and she applied for a position at St Victoria's School for Young Ladies in the spring of 1890. The journey to Wales was not arduous: she was fortunate enough to arrive on a clement afternoon, one of those sweet May-white days which hold the promise of fair weather to come. As she walked up the wide gravel path that led to the school she heard a great shout from behind the building, followed by cheering and the sound of applause.

The cause, as it turned out, was Founder's Day: the girls had been required to demonstrate their talents for their parents, and one expert gymnast had just performed a particularly daring manoeuvre on a rope suspended from the highest branch of the old oak tree. Others were giving dramatic recitals, or demonstrations of dancing, singing, instrument-playing, horse-riding or archery, whilst still more students pointed proudly to their artworks in the corridors. Judging from their expressions, all the parents present seemed well-satisfied at how their money was being spent.

One of the students hurried up, a tray of wine-glasses balanced between her hands. "You must be our new art teacher!" she smiled, proffering the tray towards Miss McCleethy. "I noticed you the moment you came in. That's a lovely brooch you're wearing!"

"Thank you, it was a gift..." Miss McCleethy's voice trailed away as she caught sight of a family tableau. An elegant society mother was busily adjusting her daughter's formal dress, smoothing the bustle to ensure the pleats fell correctly and talking endlessly all the while. The girl – a slim, pretty thing with a heart-shaped face - endured her mother's attentions patiently, but seemed to be half-laughing at the fuss, even throwing a wink to her father as if to draw him into the joke. Her father, in that way men often have, looked floridly uncomfortable at having to be present at all.

"Excuse me - who is that girl?"

"Her? Oh, that's Nell Hawkins," the drinks-bearer replied, oblivious to her teacher's sharp intake of breath. "She's quite a good friend of mine. Her father used to be a Colonel in the Grenadier Guards, but he's retired from the Army now - currently works for Lloyds of London, I believe."

"_Hawkins_. I see. And Nell... is short for Eleanor?"

The drinks-bearer nodded, and Miss McCleethy turned her grey eyes towards the distant girl with the merry smile.

"Eleanor. Of course. Like Eleanor of Aquitaine: the name of a queen…"

**IV.**

Beyond the cliffs the sea was calm, a quartz-grey translucence that stretched without impediment to the horizon. Slowly the dawning sun began its ascent into a clear sky, its beams scattering the water's surface with a searing net of light.

She stood in the shade of the trees, and looked eastward. From this distance she could make out the four blurred silhouettes on the cliff-top, caught in a swathe of dazzle. She knew them. One was the girl who had offered her drinks on Founder's Day, almost a year ago now: another was the slender gymnast whose quicksilver grace marked her for future fame as a dancer. The third was a beauty from the Devon coast, whose ivory brow and gentian eyes had made innumerable artists beg for the chance to immortalize her on canvas. A few steps behind them came the girl who had chosen them as confidantes, who had taken their hands and promised them enchantment.

Their voices carried to her on the breeze. She heard their distant quibbling, their breathless promises of what they would do once they had the Power. _I'm going to fly to those clouds over there! I'll live on the sunlight, and the winds shall carry me all over the world! I'm going to have men kill themselves for love of me! I'm going to mint gold sovereigns from the empty air, and buy the Tower of London!_ Only one girl lingered a few paces behind, silent, whose chestnut hair whipped across her eyes as she turned her face to the north wind, searching for her teacher, her guide, her protector.

She had seen that dark troubled look on Nell's face before, when she had first approached the girl and asked her if she had ever seen the Door of Light. Later she had seen that troubled look fade from Nell's features, seen it replaced by tranquillity and - finally - by an unutterable joy. Upon opening her eyes, Nell had seized her teacher's hands and chattered excitedly at her. Oh goodness, how long had she been entranced? Only a few minutes? But she had been away for hours! And was that really the Realms? That lilac-tinged sky - those soft gentle slopes of emerald green – those diamond-splashing waterfalls, that heavenly scent of jasmine? Was it all true? Could it possibly be true?

Nell had babbled like this for ages, overcome by excitement, then she had impulsively gathered Miss McCleethy into a tight hug. Oh, how she loved her! How could she possibly thank her? And when, oh when could she go there again?

Every night Miss McCleethy had visited Nell, willing her on, grasping Nell's hands as the girl fell unconscious - and every night, Nell would emerge from her swoon to witness her teacher's tangible disappointment. Nell tried, how she tried to materialize the Door of Light! But however much she tried, her frantic hand-waving could never summon the Door in her mind into physical being, and as time wore on she grew slump-shouldered and careworn, nervous of her teacher's gaze and ashamed of her persistent failure.

_This girl will never take you to the Realms_, murmured the voice in Miss McCleethy's mind. _Get rid of her. Do it now._

_She's close. Give her another two weeks – would you sacrifice her so soon, when she could bring you back home?_

The creature had relented, and Miss McCleethy's bitten nails had driven deep crescents into Nell's palms for the next twelve nights. But those efforts had been fruitless too, and on the thirteenth night Miss McCleethy had invited Nell and her three closest friends to her room to let them know of the Power. Nell had taken their hands and sworn to them the truth of Miss McCleethy's tale. Frightened, exhilarated and only a little incredulous, they had agreed to meet her on the cliff-tops at daybreak the next morning.

She took a deep breath, then broke from the cover of the trees and walked swiftly towards the girls in white. A fierce sea-breeze blew into her face, lifting her green cloak and causing it to swirl at her back. She could see the first tinges of darkness tainting the pale sky, like ink spiralling downwards into a jar of clear water. She mumbled the first words of summoning, and watched the sea's hue change from quartz to scuffed iron, then to the darkness of coal. Hearing the distant roar of thunder, sensing the sudden sharp chill in the air, she shuddered.

She reached for Nell's sleeve to pull her away from the scene, but she could not stop Nell seeing it all – the way the girls screeched in panic, were swallowed before they could escape, how they were..._changed_. She could not stop Nell seeing her closest friends turn empty and obedient within the demon's belly. How the three of them opened their bleached eyes and grinned at her, like exultant demons welcoming a fellow sinner into Hell.

She caught a glimpse of Nell's own eyes, as distended and panicked as a hunted hare's, and pressed the girl closer to her chest. _No_, she told the demon with all the firmness she could muster, _not this one_.

_I take whom I please. It is not my fault if you come to care for them!_

"Run, Nell!" she called, thrusting the girl away from her, sending her careering down the path towards the beach. "Run! Run as fast as you can! Block it from your mind!"

She had only time to witness the girl's stumbling gallop down the slope before the creature was upon her. _Foolish woman!_ it shrieked._ Do you wish me to sacrifice you instead of her? Is that what you wish?_

_Then do it – go on! _She faced the creature, closed her eyes and waited for annihilation, only to hear instead its savage, frustrated howling.

Slowly, she realized what she had done. With her momentary defiance, she had unwittingly trapped it into admitting its dependence upon her. The creature could certainly consume her, but without a human instrument to summon and direct it, it would never be able to feed again on this earth. After sixteen years of symbiosis, it _needed_ her: it could not yet afford to sacrifice her to its appetites.

She opened her eyes. The creature swelled above her, a potent cloud of rage, its snarling maw wide as destruction. _If you refuse me again –_

_Not that one_, she repeated. _I will give you any sacrifice you ask for, but not that one._

_Not that one? Why? _Then it gave a bark of horrid delight. _Your child! The child who summoned me forth, the cause of all your strife! And yet you wanted to give your life for hers? You should have let me consume her, Circe, you should have let me make her truly yours -_

_No more_, she muttered.

_It would have been kindness on your part! Did you think her mind could survive that? Seeing her friends turned, knowing she was the bait in the trap? Knowing that her wise, kind teacher stands on a mound of corpses? It will shatter her, Circe! Even now, she is retreating within herself!_

"Silence!" she screamed, then clawed the dark malevolence away from her and tore down the slope after Nell, calling her name. But the early-morning fishermen, heading for shore in the brewing storm, had already hauled the half-drowned girl from the waves. Now she lay limply in the hull of their boat, her face turned up to the sky and her eyes utterly vacant. Her lips were moving, but her throat was parched raw with sea-water and it was a while before the fishermen could properly make out her words.

"Jack and Jill - went up the hill, fetch a pail of water – Jack fell down, broke his crown, and Jill - came tumbling after…"

**V.**

Miss Hester Moore, Spence's newest teacher, had been at the school for barely two months when the letter arrived for her. She took it from her pigeon-hole, frowning – who could it be from? – turned it over, and noted with surprise the stamp from India, the Bombay postmark.

When she saw her name written in bold ink, _Miss Hester Asa Moore_, she dropped it as if it had been a live and hissing cobra.

_Her_ writing. She had not seen it for twenty years but she would recognize the hand anywhere, it had once been as familiar as her own. But the writer was dead, she had perished by fire in the gutted East Wing of Spence. After twenty years the dead could not return, such things were impossible… She tore off her gloves, picked the letter from the floor, peeled it open and with shaking hands extracted the three pages that lay within.

_Dear Sarah,_

_I had hoped never to write a letter like this. Much as I longed for your survival, I also prayed with what few threads of faith remained to me that, if you had survived, our paths would never cross again. We were dangerous for each other, Sarah: your passion and my passivity together caused the death of that poor innocent child. I take the blame for it, and know that if judgement awaits me beyond this life that I will be the one to answer for it, not you. But I was weak, and daily I prayed not to be led into such temptation as you led me that night._

_After Spence I found my way to India, the country I had always dreamed of visiting, and there I found a good man who rescued me. I have my own life now, and children, and it is more than I deserve. Now I am writing to beg you to leave this life you are leading, before it destroys you. You were my own sweet sister once, and it fills me with horror to know how you have spent the last twenty years._

_We colonials here in India are not entirely ignorant of the happenings back in Britain - we receive all the major papers, from "The Times" to "Tit-Bits", and even if they are a few weeks late in arriving we always scan them avidly, nostalgic for news of home. Seventeen years ago I read of the noble Miss Maria Hoftselme, and something about the surname struck me as unusual. A false coinage, you could say. I took my husband's fountain-pen (usually sacred to the worship of the Times crossword) and began to re-arrange the letters, just as we always used to do together, looking for our secret Order names. "Maria Hoftselme": "I am of the Realms". _

_I did not know it was you, then. I tried to calm myself into believing it another member of the scattered Order, and that Miss Hoftselme was as good and faithful a woman as she appeared. But then came the horrific disappearance of ten people at the hands of "Merope Mitchadown", that Spiritualist whose name was an arrangement of "I command the Power". My suspicions grew stronger, and with "Aurielle Whitboyd" they were confirmed. "I will be your death"? Well, you kept that promise, Sarah. You were his death._

_After that you took the name of Claire McCleethy – "They call me Circe" – and you started to prey upon young girls in boarding-schools, girls far away from their families, girls as naïve and vulnerable as young Mary Dowd once was. And your focus was no longer money, was it? Now you sought the Realms. After Eugenia gave her life to save yours and seal the Realms for good, you sought a girl who could take you back there – and I could guess why. So I contacted Spence as a foreign benefactress and asked Mrs Nightwing to let me know whenever a new teacher was appointed. When she wrote to tell me that a "Hester Moore" would soon be arriving, I broke down in tears. Hester Asa Moore: your favourite Order name, the one of which you were so proud._

_Sarah, did you use those anagrams as a way of calling to me? Did you intend me to track you through the years? Was it pride, letting me know how clever you were - or was it a plea for my help? Do you want me to help you? I can never take you back to the Realms, but I can offer you a new life in India. Maybe there we can find a way to rid you of whatever demons torment you._

_Come to me, Sarah. Let me give you whatever help I can. Write to me at "Mary Dowd, care of the General Post Office, Curzon Street, Bombay, India." Tell me which day your ship will arrive and I will be at the docks, waiting for you. I used to pray that we would never meet again, but now I pray for you to come to me before it is too late._

_Your erstwhile sister, _

_Mary._

Folding the pages back into the envelope, Miss Moore's gait was unusually stiff-backed and steady as she walked out of the school and out into the grounds. Beyond the chasm the caves stood empty, harbouring shadows. She entered, and felt the dank chill which emanated from the walls on her exposed skin. Scrawled across the ceiling were a succession of ancient brown hieroglyphs, and, there, in a dark nook, shielded from a casual glance, was the glyph she and Mary had created. Drawn in their own shared blood, it marked the day they had first entered the Realms together.

Two girls, their hands joined for eternity.

**VI**.

She sent no word to Mary, but nonetheless she embarked on the liner _Colossus_, bound for Bombay, on the first day of June. On the twenty-first of the month she set foot upon the crowded quayside and looked about her, her spirits curiously light with anticipation. Calling a nearby porter, she arranged for her luggage to be taken to the nearby Imperial Hotel: that done, she re-adjusted her white hat and veil against the heat of the sun and made her way to Curzon Street.

Bombay's General Post Office was a typical British-Victorian temple to communication. Built of stone and inlaid with rose-pink marble and dark oak-panelling, its interior was cool and shadowy, a welcome respite from the sweltering noonday temperatures. She did not remove her hat or veil, and sat patiently on a long wooden bench until she was informed that an official was now free to see her.

At her request, the elderly Indian clerk widened his eyes, then shook his head in bemusement. Leave a message for "Mary Dowd"? But there was no such woman in Bombay - he had never before heard the name in all his thirty years of employment! She was welcome to write her note, of course, but Miss Dowd had not set up a post office box to receive it. Was she sure this Miss Dowd was not at a hotel? The Imperial was two streets away, the Hotel Bristol was eight minutes' walk – would she like directions?

The veiled woman fled down the shallow marble steps, her heart pounding. If Mary had set up no box, then she had never expected to receive a letter – she had _expected_ Sarah to arrive in Bombay and enquire after "Mary Dowd" at the Post Office - and she, gullible fool, had walked straight into the trap! Who had Mary set to keep watch there? Whose eyes were at that moment following her? She spun round in the street, scanning it for signs of movement, and her eyes fixed upon a broad-shouldered, turbaned Indian man in the corner of the street. His dark eyes locked on hers; she saw his hand reach down to his belt.

She turned and ran, elbowing her way through the crowds, shedding her hat and veil and a handful of coins behind her to interest the beggars and hopefully block his way. At a crossroads she plunged down a darkened alleyway, turned and found herself in a flea-ridden street-market. A clothing-stall stood at the far end of the street. The vendor asked no questions when a gold sovereign was thrown into his lap: silently, he allowed the strange British woman to duck behind the screen. There was commotion in the nearby streets, she heard that much, but by the time he arrived she was unrecognizable, and - when she dared dart a glance directly at his face, and saw his restless gaze and frustrated expression - she knew that she was safe.

Visibly, the turbaned man gave up his pursuit and retraced his steps. A figure, clad head-to-toe in black robe and _niqab,_ followed him at a safe distance.

Behind the headdress that obscured her nose and mouth and allowed her vision only through thick netting, she seethed with anger. So Mary had sent one of the _Rakshana_ to find her! And, judging from the dagger-blade which had glinted in his fist, his thoughts were not on negotiation. A trap! A plot to kill her! Mary's honeyed pleas had held nothing but poison, _poison she had been so stupidly eager to swallow…_ Struggling against a rage that threatened to engulf her, she saw the man approach another of no more than seventeen – his younger brother, judging from the jawline – and carefully followed the pair of them along the streets to a market-place near the railway depot.

Two fair-skinned women stood there in the sunlight, and the sight almost knocked the breath from her, made her steady herself for balance against a crumbling whitewashed wall. It was not the grown woman that caused her to startle so, but the child beside her, the child with vibrant red-gold hair and glass-green eyes. In her could be seen the Mary Dowd of twenty years ago - the same scattering of tea-stain freckles across her cheeks and snub nose, that petulant innocence in her eyes that showed how easily she could bruise.

Quickly the broad-shouldered man brushed against the older woman, whispered his brief message in her ear. It set her twisting and shying like a skittish doe, her panicked eyes sweeping the corners of the market as if she expected to see her nemesis reveal herself at any moment. She muttered a few nervous words, then reached up to her neckline. Sarah's breath caught in her throat as she saw Mary Dowd unclasp the shining pendant from her slender neck and fasten it around that of her daughter. The crescent Eye which Eugenia Spence had thrown to Mary on the last day of her life; the Eye, which offered all who wore it protection from the trackers of the Realms.

By giving her daughter the pendant, Mary Dowd had left herself open to attack. She had as good as bared her neck on the block for the executioner to strike. Did she think Sarah would relent? Did she expect mercy, after the deadly trap she had set? She watched Mary's daughter cry hysterically and rush from the square, then muttered the words of summoning under her breath. _That woman there_, she told the ravenous creature, _the British woman and the Rakshana who does her bidding. Take them and feed on them. Go._

_She is Mary Dowd_, the creature exulted. _The pretty one, the one who can step at will into the Realms! As your thrall, bound to your will, she cannot deny us entrance–_

But Mary, wily to the last, defeated Sarah and her tracker with one final desperate act. When Sarah peered inside the hut and saw what had drawn such a crowd, it took all her strength to choke back her cry of horror. Her erstwhile sister's body lay in the spreading satiny pool of her own blood, the dagger's bone handle protruding from her chest. Dead, and far beyond her capturing.

Three months later Miss Hester Moore saw Mary Dowd's daughter, dressed in mourning, standing in the entrance hall in Spence. She looked a second time, and saw a fly unaware of its progress towards the web.

**VII.**

Gaslights flickered erratically along the windowless corridor, setting the shadows to twitching as the women passed by. Their footsteps beat a harsh staccato against the stone flooring, the only sounds to break the eerie silence that reigned in this part of the building.

Bethlem Hospital, they'd explained to the visitor, was a progressive institution. Surely she no longer thought that William Hogarth's grotesque caricatures of "Bedlam" represented reality? Oh goodness, no! Now members of the public came not to laugh at the patients, but to _socialize_ them: they attended the dances, conversed with the patients, and their kind attentions made the poor unfortunates subtly aware of their responsibilities. True, not every patient could be cured with social contact – they had the whirling-chairs, the ice-water immersions, the straitjackets and the hobbles for the others – but how happy they were, that most of their patients could be painlessly saved!

Miss Hawkins – ah, such a sad case! Delusional, of course, but the attentions given her by the doctors and her visitors seemed to be doing her the power of good… at least until that dreadful outburst at the dance, a week ago. It was always awkward when a patient's relapse was public: it unnerved the visitors so, made them wary of coming again.

The visitor reassured them that she had every confidence in the way the hospital was treating Miss Hawkins. In fact, she was here to commence a charitable subscription of ten guineas a year to the hospital, on behalf of Miss Hawkins' parents. The envelope in her hand contained the first instalment, in pound notes. As a matter of fact, _would_ it be possible to see Miss Hawkins privately, just for a few minutes? If the girl was strait-jacketed, then her visitor could not possibly be in any danger…

The nurse noisily unlocked the heavy iron door, pushed it wide. "Nell!" she announced to the bound figure in the centre of the floor. "Visitor for you! It's Miss Moore, your father's secretary – surely you remember Miss Moore?"

The figure lifted her head to stare blearily at them. Then her eyes cleared, and her body began to tremble uncontrollably within its arrangement of linen straps. Barely-audible whimpering came from her throat as the smartly-dressed lady knelt down beside her and began to stroke her uneven feathery hair with one cupped hand, gently, as if soothing a frightened cat.

When the nurse had clanged the door shut, the hand swiftly descended to clamp tightly upon Nell Hawkins' mouth.

It was the work of moments for Circe to summon the Door of Light and step within, leading the still-bound and unresisting Nell behind her. They paced the path which led to the ruined Temple, and high above them swirled a thing of darkness: Circe's own tracker, which had hastened to the Realms as soon as the Runes had been destroyed. The swirling, monstrous presence which had corrupted Mary Dowd and had, not long before, helped Circe fool Gemma Doyle and her pathetic friends. Circe had gambled confidently that, faced with their teacher on the brink of being consumed by a stormy terror, the girls would turn tail and run for their own lives. She had been proven right, as she had always been right about Gemma Doyle. Like mother, like daughter…

_Welcome back, my mistress_, hissed the creature.

_You were better to say 'welcome home'_, she reproved, a note of laughter spilling into her reply. _Today, with Miss Doyle's assistance, I shall take possession of the Realms_.

Those who had been willing to kill a sacrifice within the Realms had always been granted great power, and Gemma Doyle knew it. A shock of pure fear flashed through those glass-green eyes as she saw the dagger elegantly positioned under Nell Hawkins' throat. Silently, passively, the girl heard the terms of Circe's final bargain.

"I have been willing to make many sacrifices, Gemma. What sacrifices will _you_ make?"

She had sacrificed all she was, all she could be, for this moment. She watched the red-haired girl lift the silver bow and arrow, aiming for her heart, and she smiled inwardly as her words lured the corrupted soul to shield her. Yes, Gemma Doyle would surrender to her: there was no other option. What could stop her now?

She felt a powerful blow beneath her hands. A blow that knocked Nell's head sideways, that twisted Nell's shoulders out of her captor's grasp.

She stared aghast at the sight that met her eyes, dumbly refusing to comprehend why her daughter lay there pale and unmoving, why a long silver arrow pierced her throat. Then Circe broke in terror and collapsed to the ground, trying with both hands to pull the wretched slippery thing from her girl's neck. It would not come. As Nell's head slumped heavily away from her, she felt her world about to burst in a keening howl of despair.

"What have you done?" she heard herself screaming. _"What have you done?"_

And at the heart of it all stood young Mary Dowd, clutching the limp ragged body of a Gypsy child, her green eyes bloodshot and desperate. Mary Dowd as she had last seen her, an elegant vacant-eyed corpse._ A life for a life – an eye for an eye - like mother, like daughter…_

"Now I have bloodied my hands," came the pitiless voice of Gemma Doyle.

**VIII.**

Now, _she_ is the one suspended and drowning.

She hangs immobile beneath the water's shining surface, her face upturned, powerless to break her way free from her enemy's seal. Though dark ice-water swirls about her, she is conscious. She can breathe and she can remember.

And she has so long now to ponder the final moments before her imprisonment, when she and Gemma thrashed within the confines of this well, fighting for mastery of the Realms. A fight which both of them wanted to win, but only one of them did.

Now she can spend the rest of her existence wondering whether she did indeed want to win, or whether her last moments were filled with another urge entirely.

**THE END**


End file.
